SIN SINGAPORE. 





crime, misdemeanour, &c. Strictly speaking, sin ] 

 can attach only to an intelligent and free agent, 

 who has or might have a knowledge of the exis- 

 tence and sacredness of the law. The imputation 

 of sin to the transgressor of the divine law is the ' 

 regarding him as the author of this transgression, 

 and as justly punishable for it. Theologians and ', 

 moral philosophers distinguish several species of < 

 gins, either with reference to the nature of the law 

 which the sinner transgresses, or to the subject 

 against which the sin is committed, or to the sin- 

 ner, or to the nature and quality of the action it- 

 self. In the first point of view, sins are divided 

 into those of omission and commission; but this 

 division amounts, in fact, to nothing, because, 

 whenever a man sins, he omits something which he 

 ought to have done, and commits something which 

 he ought to have left undone. The same sin may 

 fall under either class, according as we express the 

 moral law, which is violated positively or negatively. 

 The moral relations between man and the objects 

 of his duty are much too close to allow an essential 

 difference between omission and commission. Sins 

 are divided, like duties, into those towards God, 

 our fellow-men and ourselves; but this division is 

 little more than formal, for every sins falls, in some 

 degree, under all three heads. As regards the sin- 

 ner, sins are divided into premeditated and unpre- 

 meditated, the latter being the fruit of sudden im- 

 pulse, and not of deliberate purpose. Moreover, 

 there are internal and external sins (the former in- 

 clude bad appetites, evil thoughts, &c.), conditional 

 and unconditional sins. Sin is often used also for 

 that state of the soul which is properly called sin- 

 fulness. Lastly, sin is divided by theologians into 

 original sin and actual sin ; the former again into 

 inherent sin (denoting that corruption of nature 

 which is believed to have been transmitted from ' 

 the first man to all his offspring), and imputed sin, 

 denoting that liability to punishment to which all 

 the posterity of Adam are subject by the imputa- 

 tion of his trangression. Actual sin is again divide<J 

 by theologians into mortal and venial. Mortal sins, 

 according to 1 John v. 16, 17, are those the com- 

 mission of which is followed by spiritual death, 

 that is, the loss of God's grace, and differ from 

 those which may be more easily forgiven. All 

 Christians, in early times, were of opinion that 

 there was a difference between those sins which a 

 Christian might fall into from the strength of na- 

 tural propensity, and those which evidently showed 

 that the offender was yet entirely in the slavery of 

 sin, and not regenerated, such as the denial of 

 Christianity, murder, theft, adultery, fraud, &c. 

 But while one party (which subsequently became 

 predominant) acted on the principle that the church 

 was bound to receive every sinner, on condition of 

 sincere penitence, and that absolution and com- 

 munion could not be withheld from him, particiir 

 larly in the hour of death, if his repentance had 

 continued until then, there was another party 

 which would never receive again one who had 

 broken his baptismal vow, by committing a mortal 

 sin, because, said they, we know of no revelation 

 which authorizes us to do this. What sins were 

 to be regarded as mortal was not fully determined 

 by the first fathers of the church. Augustine con- 

 sidered blasphemy, incontinency and murder, as 

 falling under this class. Petrus Lombardus (3/iz- 

 gist. Sentent. ii, 41, 6), following Cassianus and 

 Gregory the Great, enumerates the following: super- 

 Ilia (pride), avaritia (avarice), luxuria (voluptuous- 



ness), ira (wrath), yula (gluttony), invidia (envy), 

 acedia (sluggishness of heart) ; and. in order to fa- 

 cilitate the remembrance of them, invented the 

 word saligia, composed of the initial letters of the 

 several names. These are the seven mortal sins 

 which, since the twelfth century, have been enu- 

 merated in the scholastic theology, and even now 

 are set forth in the doctrinal works of the Catho- 

 lics, particularly in Catholic catechisms for the 

 people, though even the contemporary of Petrus 

 Lombardus, Richard de St Victor (T>e Differentia 

 Peccati mortalis et venalis, Rouen, 1650), justly 

 makes the degree of immorality in the sinner, the 

 wrong done to others, and the contempt shown for 

 God, the standard of mortal sin ; and other school- 

 men gave the name of crying sins to murder, sodomy, 

 oppression of innocence, and forcible retention of 

 well-earned wages, and, in fact, to all those sins 

 which St Paul mentions in Gal. v. 1921. But 

 many modern Catholic writers have found this num- 

 ber insufficient, and some of them have classed 

 other mortal sins under some of these general 

 heads, while others give an entirely different list, 

 and some, again, as the writer of the article Pechc, in 

 theDictionnairede Theologie (Toulouse, 1817), men- 

 tion none by name, and say it is extremely difficult, 

 in some cases, to distinguish whether a sin is mor- 

 tal. Many Protestants also (the Calvinists ex- . 

 cepted) adopt the distinction between mortal sins 

 and those which may be forgiven ; but they make 

 this difference to consist only in the degree of 

 moral responsibility or desert of punishment; so 

 that every intentional and well-known violation of 

 duty is followed by the loss of God's grace. The 

 views of the Greek church are much like those of 

 the Roman Catholic on this point. 



SINAI; a mountain of Arabia, 150 miles south- 

 east of Suez, near the head of the Red sea, cele- 

 brated in Scripture history as the spot whence the 

 law was given to Moses. It is situated in the 

 heart of a vast and gloomy desert, the few inhabited 

 spots of which are occupied by hordes of Arabs, 

 who subsist by plunder, and render the road im- 

 passable, unless for a large and well-defended cara- 

 van. At the foot of the mountain is the Greek 

 convent of St Catharine, founded in 1331, by 

 William Bouldesell, which has ever since continued 

 to afford hospitality to the pilgrims whose zeal impels 

 them to brave the perils of this road. The monks are 

 kept, as it were, imprisoned in this convent by the 

 wild Arabs of the surrounding country. 



SINAMARI; a river of French Guiana, which 

 flows into the Atlantic in lat. 5 39' N. To its 

 banks were transported the victims of the 18th 

 Fructidor. 



SINAPISM; a poultice of mustard. These 

 poultices are made in different ways. One is of 

 mustard-seed and lin-seed or crumb of bread, equal 

 parts, vinegar a sufficient quantity; another of 

 mustard-seed pulverized, any quantity, vinegar a 

 sufficient quantity. 



SINGAPORE, OR SINGAPURA; capital of a 

 small island at the southern extremity of Malacca, 

 lat. 1 15' N.; Ion. 104* E. It was ceded, with 

 the neighbouring islands within ten miles around it, 

 to the East India company by the sultan of Johor, 

 in 1824, who had previously, however, made a 

 similar treaty, in consequence of which it had been 

 occupied by Sir T. S. Raffles in 1819. The climate 

 is healthy. The interior is laid out in gardens and 

 plantations, and its shores supply a valuable article 

 of commerce in the agar-agar, a kind of sea-weed 



